Hackers Nab Unreleased Michael Jackson Tracks From Sony

wiredmikey writes "Sony once again has found itself in the news surrounding another hacking-related incident. This time around, the breach doesn't appear to involve any lost user data or customer accounts, but instead, some valuable property owned by the record company. Today, several British news outlets have reported that more than 50,000 music tracks have been illegally accessed and downloaded by hackers, including a large number from the late Michael Jackson. Sony bought the catalog from Jackson's estate for $250 million in 2010, giving the company distribution rights to the unreleased music. The attack reportedly occurred shortly after details of the massive PlayStation Network breach last April, but details were only revealed this past weekend."

Comments

why?

[MickyTheIdiot]

Not every system you have needs to be connected to the Internet. Why in the world was such valuable digital property on a system that had ANY connection to the Internet, thorough NAT or otherwise?

I'm sorry... it just doesn't make sense. It's like all the talk of the vulnerable power grid... just don't put those items on the open internet. Or better yet... don't network them at all and have a human attend it in a secure place.

Re:why?

[Loether]

Wow what a pain that would be to administer such a landlocked system. Patching, backups, updating the content, accessing the content. What do they do when they want to access the file to mix it, or to distribute, publish the new song. What do they do when they get a new artist signed and it's time to add a song to the collection. Send in Joe the Admin with his thumbdrive to download or upload the needed song. I agree with you that there security is beyond poor, but land-locking the entire system as a solution to me doesn't seem like the best course of action.

Re:why?

[Lennie]

It might have started with just a desktop with a browser you know. After one system gets compromised it might be possible to get deeper in the corporate networks of Sony.

Even the Nuclear facilities in Iran were not connected the Internet (it did have an air gap) but the Stuxnet virus still got in.

Re:why?

[bacon.frankfurter]

*AHEM!*

...might I direct your attention to yet another hilarious article which portends similarly ominous disasters, all because someone claimed that maintaining a constant connection to the internet was a good security practice?

Car Hacking Concerns On the Rise

AND I QUOTE:

...manufacturers will struggle to keep abreast of rapidly-evolving threats unless they organize regular software updates.

Re:why?

[Anonymous Coward]

And I was wondering Why in the world its such valuable property and why anyone would want to subject the world to its release. To each their own I guess.

Re:why?

[AvitarX]

It's fucking music tracks they were not releasing to cash in at a later point.

This was going to be available at some point in the future, and it's better for society that it's available now. Locked up in a vault they had zero value.

Re:why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unplug everything from the internet! Just use thumbdrives and homing pigeons to transmit data!11! I know how security works!!

Re:why?

[poetmatt]

Yep, this actually highlights some really supreme losses to society by virtue of the Jackson estate hoarding the shit out of Michael's music and Sony too.

Were it not for this we'd see Jackson remixes for the next 100 years if Sony had their way. Good on the hackers to get that stuff out there instead into society where *society* can benefit.

Talk about greed vs culture.

Re:why?

[jesseck]

I agree with you that there security is beyond poor, but land-locking the entire system as a solution to me doesn't seem like the best course of action.

I guess it depends on how valuable the item is- if RIAA were to be counting, what was stolen was trillions of dollars. A thumbdrive and a dedicated admin to administer the landlocked system is a fraction of the value in that case.

Of course, in the real world, Sony knew the music was not worth trillions, and that is why it was connected to the Internet.

Re:why?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's fucking music tracks they were not releasing to cash in at a later point.

This was going to be available at some point in the future, and it's better for society that it's available now. Locked up in a vault they had zero value.

Better for society, you say. For society.

We're all... um... "proud" that you found a knee-jerk talking point buzzphrase that gets stupid people on your side when you use it regardless of what you're using it for (see similar phrases, such as "for the children", "for democracy/patriotism/America", "reasons of national security", "distributed and decentralized", or "all open source"), but just because it's applied to you getting free music doesn't make it any less wrong and annoying to not-stupid people as the aforementioned examples are.

Re:why?

[sociocapitalist]

/irony on

The Internet is public...evidently Sony wanted this material in the public domain...

/irony off

Re:why?

[Richard_at_work]

"Being in existence somewhere" never reasonably equates to "Should be available to me, just because I say so".

Re:why?

[bernywork]

There is plenty of times these exact things happen. It's called "Security" and it's big business. While you complain about it, in a lot of places these things happen for a reason and yes there is security personnel who review data brought between the networks. Stop being so short sighted.

Re:why?

[anotheryak]

This was going to be available at some point in the future, and it's better for society that it's available now. Locked up in a vault they had zero value.

Sony has become evil, and I hate them for it.

But, that does not make stealing something slated for later sale moral. If I want a new video game, and it won't be released until October, so I break into the store and steal a case of games in August, how is it a benefit to society? Won't society benefit more if they are sold legally? The kid working in the game store, the UPS man who delivers them, the pizza store next to the game store...they would all prefer the product to be legally sold.

Jackson recorded them for the purpose of making money and/or providing a funding legacy for "his" children. So I don't see how stealing them is somehow moral. If Sony had decided to never release them, this would be one thing....but it is not. Please explain to me how the fact that Sony had not sold them yet makes it moral to steal them.

Re:why?

[X0563511]

Wow what a pain that would be to administer such a landlocked system. Patching, backups, updating the content, accessing the content. What do they do when they want to access the file to mix it, or to distribute, publish the new song. What do they do when they get a new artist signed and it's time to add a song to the collection. Send in Joe the Admin with his thumbdrive to download or upload the needed song. I agree with you that there security is beyond poor, but land-locking the entire system as a solution to me doesn't seem like the best course of action.

That word doesn't mean what you think it means.

You're thinking of airgapping, which is well beyond appropriate for this. For critical utilities and such, yes - but not for friggin' music.

Re:why?

[hcs_$reboot]

Maybe they try to break their own 2011 hacking record? Frankly, considering the numerous and obvious methods used in 2011 (like SQL injection) I would not be surprised to learn (maybe from the inside) that their IT organization is an unimaginable mess.

Re:why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why indeed?

Why would anyone want to pirate Michael Jackson songs??

Re:why?

[Richard_at_work]

I'm sorry, is "society" really entitled to everything a person created, ever? Even if they themselves never published it to the world?

My opinion is that, no, society isn't entitled to everything - a person is quite entitled to not release something and its no loss at all to society at large, because it never influenced it in the first place.

Re:why?

[Linuxmonger]

Wow what a pain that would be to administer such a landlocked system. Patching, backups, updating the content, accessing the content.

Do you really need to do those things on a machine that has no network connection?

Assuming that when the machine was put into place it did the functions it was required to, what is the point of updating? I remember doing an update on a machine once to find out that the single file changed was the software providers logo - they had changed a background color and listed it as a required update.

Re:why?

[517714]

Technically yes, this a pretext for heavy-handed RIAA sponsored legislation that will eliminate many consumers' rights while doing nothing to the actual criminals involved in such crimes. Undoubtedly, Michael Jackson's name will be prominent in the rhetoric and bill. I expect broad bipartisan support for the measure in both houses and from the President.

Re:why?

[betterunixthanunix]

Wow what a pain that would be to administer such a landlocked system

If you paid $250 million for the data stored on that system, and you know that there are lots of people who would love to download that data without your permission, would you really think that the administrative work is too much? That should have been one of the highest security systems Sony owned, and it should not have been connected to the Internet.

What do they do when they want to access the file to mix it, or to distribute, publish the new song

None of those require an Internet connection. You can connect the computers involved in mixing to a private network, where you can control who has access to the network and you can monitor the network as a whole, and then you can transfer the files. Likewise with machines that publish the music on physical media. Publishing electronically will be harder, but for the money they paid for that data, it seems like a reasonable effort.

What do they do when they get a new artist signed and it's time to add a song to the collection

Not store it on the same system as the collection that can never be updated, and that once leaked loses a lot of value. This sounds like a pretty typical MLS problem.

Re:why?

[betterunixthanunix]

Do you really need to do those things on a machine that has no network connection?

Absolutely -- there are going to be insider threats, and they have the potential to do more damage than outsiders. Do you really think that your $35k/year janitor is not going to be paid twice that by someone trying to download your valuable data? Do you really think that a disgruntled employee would not try to run an exploit pack on your airgapped, security-sensitive system? Security is about more than simply keeping the outsiders out.

Re:why?

[MightyYar]

While I don't condone the theft, your comment is striking in how it highlights the way copyright has gone astray. Some of Micheal's music has been in copyright for close to 40 years already. And yet for a lucid, rational person for yourself, it seems reasonable to put forward that his kids need another shot of royalties so that they will have a "legacy". Now, I have nothing against providing your children (especially young children) with a bundle of cash to get them through early life and their educations - hell, maybe even a nice starter-mansion and first Rolls-Royce... but all of that could have been done through saving his money, investments, and life insurance... they sure don't need society to grant them welfare payments just because their dad(?) was a good singer.

Copyright is supposed to be about convincing artists to produce their creative works. It's supposed to be about making it a reasonable career choice to become a singer, painter, artist, etc. Why? So that we, as a society, get more creative output. It is not about making sons-of-good-singers rich. When the artist you are providing an incentive to dies, the incentive should die as well. At the very least, it should die within the number of years that a typical corporation plans for. If I'm being generous, Sony might have a 10-year plan.

As for the pizza parlor and the UPS man, this is beginning to sound an awful lot like the broken window fallacy to me. I have a sneaking suspicion that UPS could ship works based upon Michael Jackson's songs that fell into public domain just as well as they ship his 20-30 year-old stuff.

Re:why?

[Stizark]

As I see it, you're the only one referring to it as 'free' music. Most of the rest of us see it as just music-- and, arguably, art. Art which, while already created, was kept in a vault for the sake of corporate profit. The artist didn't profit from it, his estate did-- and they were already paid. And the company would have waited until 'experts' tell them that such music would have been at most value. Then, they would slowly drip out small albums at exorbitant (IMHO) costs.

So while I understand the need for corporations to make profit-- and, while I understand your general, apparent disdain for piracy-- the gp did have a point. Sociey-- that being, human beings and our culture-- are quite a bit more 'wealthy' because of it. At least, if the priates ever intend to release the music without extorting it in some way, or hoarding it. Heh.

If Sony were smart, they'd come out with their music before the hackers torrent them. Then again, as this happened a year ago, and Sony still hasn't released the files, it seems to me that they have no interest in that idea. I'm glad someone out there is enjoying the music.

Re:why?

[Anonymous Coward]

...but land-locking the entire system as a solution to me doesn't seem like the best course of action.

Even after losing $250 million worth of music? Park your Porsche in the street in the edge of a ghetto, because it's convenient. And then (in SONY's case) be a belligerent little dweeb on a megaphone ordering the neighborhood to stay away from it. I guarantee you, you will not be driving that car for very long. It's stupidity, or arrogance, or sloth, to leave such an important asset connected to a hostile network. If my network admin doesn't like the inconvenience of managing this as a system apart, then the lazy fuck doesn't belong there. They may as well just store the data in "The Cloud", if they are going to be that casual about security.

Re:why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think because they never published, the copyrights should be invalid. At least it would if copyrights worked with patent legislation. Invent 'world changing machine' and don't market it in 5 years, you patent would be invalid (or would be able to be succesfully made invalid by going to court).

Re:why?

[Sir_Sri]

Again though, if you have 25 studios all around the world, each one of which could be working on all or part of a track, it becomes very hard to manage thousands of separate pieces of data.

It's not that the potential security arrangements are impossible, they certainly aren't, record companies did business long before the internet, so that's even an option. It's that an effective, collaborative workflow for hundreds or thousands of employees around the world, or even on one large facility, it's a time wasting nightmare to be running through layers of security to send it from building 1a to building 9 100 metres away.

Lots of businesses manage to keep their employees connected, have files of various sorts accessible, because they have security they feel is capable of keeping all of that material secure. They might be wrong, and sony might have thought it had adequate protections. We can't on one hand argue for all of these collaborative tools that really do improve workflow and then say no one should use them because they're insecure. If they are insecure it's a matter of figuring out how secure we can make them.

No matter what though, if people have access to the data, they could release it.

Re:why?

[Richard_at_work]

Evidently someone disagrees with me but doesn't have the balls to actually enter into discussion about it.

No, you do not have an entitlement to something just because it exists. There, I said it again.

Re:why?

[ackthpt]

Not every system you have needs to be connected to the Internet. Why in the world was such valuable digital property on a system that had ANY connection to the Internet, thorough NAT or otherwise?

I'm sorry... it just doesn't make sense. It's like all the talk of the vulnerable power grid... just don't put those items on the open internet. Or better yet... don't network them at all and have a human attend it in a secure place.

Really couldn't agree more. There'd be so little to read on Slashdot if people had a lick of sense anymore regarding networking computers. If it needs to be on the local network, put it there. If it needs to get to the outside, put it behind a firewall. If it doesn't require any connectivity, then don't network it at all (damn Microsoft and their auto-updates, forget about them!)

Geez, it's like the current generation of IT people would, in charge of a bank, leave the doors and vault open all night, without so much as a guard.

Re:why?

[Oswald McWeany]

If I ever complete my novel and become famous I plan to do exactly this. Maintain a landlocked system where I write.

Of course- I need to complete a book first. Before that- I need to learn basic grammer and spelling.

Re:why?

[Oswald McWeany]

it's better for society that it's available now

I disagree- this is Michael Jackson's music we're talking about- it is better that this never is broardcast ever. Legally or illlegally.

Re:why?

[Lumpy]

The same thing they do on Video editing systems at most places. cart the files on a drive. I did IT for a major Tv production house, none of the AVID's were on a private separated network. all projects and assets were carted around outside the AVID isolated network and media server.

IF IT whines, you smack them and tell them to STFU and RTFM as putting extra effort into protecting the machines that actually makes money is more important than upsetting a few wanna-be BOFH's.

Re:why?

[Lumpy]

"Again though, if you have 25 studios all around the world, each one of which could be working on all or part of a track, it becomes very hard to manage thousands of separate pieces of data."

that never happens. they dont mix the beginning in hong kong and then have the ireland guys clean up the drums.

and even if you had to have such a wacked out unrealistic setup, you can easily have an isolated network that spans the globe, you just pay for a point to point connection. the size of sony, they could purchase fiber all over the globe. There is a ton of dark fiber for sale.

Re:why?

[Lumpy]

You know how easy it is to get someone to infiltrate the cleaning crew? IF you want in a company's secret systems, that is what you do. The morons on the executive wing and security office don't understand this. the only way to fix it is either pay the cleaning people handsomely, or clean up your own trash. Either one will never happen in a corporation.

In fact at comcast we used to call the cleaning crew to get into the areas we did not have access. Their keycards would let them in everywhere, including the CEO's office.

Re:why?

[DarwinSurvivor]

Sony did not pay $250,000 for copies of those songs. They paid $250,000 for the rights to SELL (or license as they call it) those songs for a profit. Sure, someone could steal the songs, but the "thief" is not going to be able to then sell those albums for $10 a pop at HMV or post them on iTunes. Remember, as soon as they start selling the songs, security of the original version is pretty much pointless since everyone with 10 bucks can get a legal copy as well. The only exception (as the title actually points out) is *unreleased* material, and I'm guessing there wasn't a whole lot of that in the collection.

Re:why?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Even the Nuclear facilities in Iran were not connected the Internet (it did have an air gap) but the Stuxnet virus still got in.

Getting in is the 'easy' part. It is the getting back out with useful information where the air-gap is useful.

Even the US DoD's air-gap networks were infilitrated but the attack didn't get back out again

Re:why?

[Wraithlyn]

Pretty sure he knows what the actual definition of landlocked is.

And yet, everyone instantly knew what he meant. Perfectly intuitive metaphor (ie, the internet as ocean).

Re:why?

[DarwinSurvivor]

The data on those machines was not worth $250,000 as many people erroneously assume. It was the LICENSE to SELL those songs on the market that was worth $250,000. The instant Sony starts making any money (by selling/licensing them), they are instantly available for $.99/each. The "thieves" did not steal the $250,000 licenses, they simply stole one copy of each song (which are all either available already or will be soon). The only material stolen that could POSSIBLY be considered a problem would be tracks that haven't been released, and that would simply hurt their "first release" sales. It would be interesting if there were any unmixed copies though.

Re:why?

[10101001 10101001]

I'm sorry, is "society" really entitled to everything a person created, ever?

Society is not entitled to an unpublished work. A person is note entitled to copyright an unpublished work. Well, that'd be how it would work if copyright were somehow sensible...

My opinion is that, no, society isn't entitled to everything - a person is quite entitled to not release something and its no loss at all to society at large, because it never influenced it in the first place.

It's a funny idea, granting a monopoly over society to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" on a work that "never influenced it in the first place". Except, of course, one would reasonably assume that some of those works not published are forerunners of works that were published and those works did influence society. So, either the works are influential and should be copyrighted and at some level be forced available to the public (if nothing else, something like viewable in the Library of Congress) or the works aren't influential and should not have a copyright, with public copies being limited to just how well the work can be protected by physical means.

Re:why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the +1 button is broken, I can't make this comment get up to the rating it deserves...

Re:why?

[tixxit]

I do agree it was silly. Nonetheless, I (somewhat) recently read Kevin Mitnick's autobiography Ghost in the Wires. At some point he was basically going around collecting the source code of phone operating systems. For one OS, he went so far as to have someone mail out a set of floppies with the OS on it, since he couldn't get in from the outside.

Re:why?

[Anonymous Coward]

But without access to sea, how else would pirates be able to get onto his network?

Re:why?

[Isaac Remuant]

Ohhhhhh, so that's where Clouds come from. I get it now.

Re:why?

[Isaac Remuant]

How about clean while you're there like it happens in our place? (Unless you can't handle a minor interruption once a day)

Re:why?

[Richard_at_work]

Still got more mod points I see?

Re:why?

[Anonymous Coward]

And the same people attempting to kill your karma are the ones that will pirate software/music/whatever, and then use the excuse that because they pirate, the added exposure drives more sales.

Re:why?

[Toze]

because it never influenced it in the first place.

Except that Michael Jackson was influenced by Little Richard, James Brown, and Diana Ross. And Michelangelo lifted Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise for the posing of the Sistine Chapel. And every artist ever is influenced tremendously by all the artists that preceded them, and no art is created ex nihilo. The arguments for not releasing an artist's work (ie copyright) are never that the artist doesn't owe anything to society, but that the artist needs to make a living, or to ensure that their children are provided for.

In other words, yes, society really is entitled to everything a person creates, ever, even if they never published it, because that person appropriated the majority of their work from society in the first place. Our societies have, in the last 400 years, been willing to trade some of what we're owed in free speech in order to provide monetary reward to the artists, but we're still owed that speech. Disney didn't invent Cinderella, Dan Brown didn't invent the Catholic church, Dan Bull didn't invent either rapping or Skyrim (nor did Bioware invent fantasy adventure or videogames, nor did Tolkien invent magic rings or elves, etc.., etc., etc.).

Re:why?

[mcgrew]

I'm sorry, is "society" really entitled to everything a person created, ever? Even if they themselves never published it to the world?

Yes. Article 2, section 8 of the US Constitution:

The Congress shall have power to... promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

Copyright is granted in order for more works to become the public domain's. I don't own the stories I write, you do, as does everyone else. I merely have a limited time monopoly on its publication.

My opinion is that, no, society isn't entitled to everything

Your opinion is completely unimportant. It doesn't matter of your opinion is that the sky is green, it's still not green. Your opinion is ignorant and wrong.

And I'd like to add that were copyright lengths sane, this stuff wouldn't be locked up in the first place.

Re:why?

[staticneuron]

You are right, this does bring up interesting arguments about the line between copyright and consumers sense of entitlement. Copyright is all about profit and ownership. But the original intent of copyright is hundreds of years old now. As with all things it has changed and adopted with society and technology. 400 years ago, they crafted it most likely because of the limitations of spreading someones work around. Today we have the internet.

Even if I were to agree with you about the music in question becoming available for all to use and recreate as a source of inspiration, I really don't see how it would entitle anyone to the work as performed by a particular artist.

Shold MJ's kids profit form "anyone" singing MJ's songs? I don't think so. Should they profit from copies of their Father singing the song? I don't see a problem in that.

Re:why?

[Anonymous Coward]

*AHEM!* ...might I direct your attention to yet another hilarious article which portends similarly ominous disasters, all because someone claimed that maintaining a constant connection to the internet was a good security practice? Car Hacking Concerns On the Rise AND I QUOTE:

...manufacturers will struggle to keep abreast of rapidly-evolving threats unless they organize regular software updates.

I dont get it. How about a car analogy?

Re:why?

[GuB-42]

Yes it is a pain. But for sensitive data, this is what is done.

I have worked for confidential project and none of it was connected to the internet, even indirectly. To copy a file, we had to give a USB drive to the sysadmin, it was scanned for viruses and copied to the secure network. And anything that goes out of the network was treated like a confidential document. Also, everything have to be stored in a secure, windowless room.
And "confidential" is the lowest classification.

Re:why?

[poetmatt]

Yes, they are. Why do you suppose copyright isn't forever? Eventually society is entitled to everything. It's just that people are selfish *and* idiotic and think that hoarding is somehow better. (cue arguments about "Steaaaling!" etc etc).

Not one piece of music wasn't influenced by something prior - hardly even a 'creative' work. Just a remix/derivative.

Re:why?

[Sir_Sri]

Are you sure they don't? I did IT work for a guy who had a studio in toronto where he did guitar work for artists, which they did real time collaboration with other studios to integrate things. The artist could be in London or Los Angles or the like and they had some setup where they could collaboratively combine all of that stuff at once. I know his studio did voice work as well, but his specialty was guitar so I know they had some special hookup on the guiltar so it would transmit specially (i.e. the full quality of the guitar audio or something).

I was just selling him some office computers so I don't know the details of how the setup works sadly, or I'd say.

And even then, if your studio in London takes track A, your studio in LA takes track B, and your other studio in LA track C it's essentially the same problem.

Re:why?

[counterplex]

Did you learn nothing from the Cylons? Networking a computer is the road to certain doom!

Re:why?

[MightyYar]

Shold MJ's kids profit form "anyone" singing MJ's songs? I don't think so. Should they profit from copies of their Father singing the song? I don't see a problem in that.

They can and do profit from it, even without royalties. If my father was a wall street tycoon (I wish), I would benefit from it even without getting a magic royalty benefit check every month. Presumably, he would have saved some money for me (maybe in a rich boy trust?), he would have fed me well, and he would have given me a good education. The fact is that those kids did no work whatsoever - not one shred, and they are getting paid for it by society (by the government, really). That makes it pure charity, which I am fine with, but I think limiting the charity to something reasonable like 10 years is more than sufficient and it might encourage artists to create, knowing that their kids will get a nice little 10-year annuity.

Re:why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you need to patch a system not connected to anything? Think about it - I see it all the time in the automotive industry. Companies create things with commodity hardware then deploy it with the assumption that it will never be broken into - which is correct if it's not hooked up to anything.
Examples: Key System's Inc - an embedded 486 based system running DOS and a touchscreen interface for managing keys - it's connected via serial to it's Windows 3.1 system that manages the keys. Keytrak, an XP Embedded system with similar functionality. Daktronics uses (as far as I know) Linux for their digital signage systems - when you power it on it shows the mac address and IP address to all the passers by on the highway.

Re:why?

[Richard_at_work]

Or in other words, the normal Slashdot mantra...

Re:why?

[AmiMoJo]

It's obvious, when they want to distribute their latest (s)hits they use Megaupload! Didn't you see the video? Loads of Sony artists use it!

Re:why?

[Richard_at_work]

I'm sorry, but that entire argument is just fucking ridiculous, but I expect nothing less of a community such as Slashdot to come up with such rubbish.

The fact that an artist is influenced by those that went before him has absolutely nothing to do with the apparent appropriation of private, unreleased works - you have no right to those, no entitlement to them, and there is no justification you can give to support the forced acquisition of said private works.

I couldn't care less that Disney didn't invent Cinderella, or that Dan Brown didn't invent the Catholic Church - in time, society gets Disney's rendition of Cinderella and Dan Browns tales of mystery, but society does not have an automatic right to Disney's internal pitches, or Dan Browns private diary or abandoned works. Thats just ridiculous and bordering on an society with a problem.

The whole "x didn't invent y, so therefor everything x creates is owed to society at large" is sociopathic in nature - an individual is entitled to a degree of privacy, and if they do not want to release their work to the public then that should be their choice and their choice alone. And that includes privately selling the rights to said works in whatever manner they wish.

Only on Slashdot would such pure infantile bile such as yours actually get modded up.

Re:why?

[RocketRabbit]

I suppose this is why all the top secret military information is on machines hooked up to the internet - so that it's easy to patch them.

If you have information that you never want to be released, why keep it on a "machine" at all? You'd put that data onto several kinds of storage media, to future-proof it, and store several copies in different locked vaults. No need at all to even have it available live.

Re:why?

[Em Adespoton]

I'm sorry, is "society" really entitled to everything a person created, ever? Even if they themselves never published it to the world?

My opinion is that, no, society isn't entitled to everything - a person is quite entitled to not release something and its no loss at all to society at large, because it never influenced it in the first place.

This is an excellent point that just helped me clarify my own views on copyright:
A person or organization should not be allowed unlimited control over something they have used to influence society.
A person or organization SHOULD be allowed unlimited control over the choice of whether to use some work to influence society.

Pedants aside, and following the "Limited" discussion in the AT&T story, restricting socialization of works artificially in order to "create" value for the producer is anti-social. Therefore, it should also be anti-copyright. Someone deciding to create something based on what society has provided, but deciding not to make it available to society at large should be just fine. They should never be forced to cede control - that would be anti-social and anti-copyright.

As an analogue: If I think something but hold my tongue, it should not be legal for someone to use all means available to force me to reveal what I didn't say. But if I thoughtlessly choose to say something, I shouldn't be able to restrict who hears it and how, outside of some very limited controls agreed to by all other parties present at time of performance (speech).

The place where all this falls into trouble in copyright is that the general public is no longer the audience for the product. Consumer, yes -- but not audience. As such, by the time the work is "published" it has long since been performed, and the true audience has decided what to release to the public and how. Muddy waters indeed.

Re:why?

[Em Adespoton]

Shold MJ's kids profit form "anyone" singing MJ's songs? I don't think so. Should they profit from copies of their Father singing the song? I don't see a problem in that.

So, you're basically saying that if person X wrote the lyrics to a song, person Y wrote the music, they both did it under contract to corporation C, who then hired performers P Q and R to perform it, P.1 should receive remuneration for every reproduction of that performance. At the same time, you're saying that if performer S then decides to cover the song, P.1 should not receive remuneration.

What you also loosely implied (but likely didn't mean to) was that at no time should X and Y benefit from "anyone" performing the song. I say this because MJ was often not just the performer, but also the songwriter (both X AND Y) and as such, it seems his children should have the same right to profit should those works (the lyrics and the tune) be reproduced by others.

In reality, X, Y C, P, Q and R can all be unique, the same, or any permutation. However, all of those variables have their own contracts and their own copyright protection, which is distinct for each role, even if they're not distinct in the person performing the function.

This is why the copyright issue is messy, and likely has no right answer.

Re:why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I do freelance work for Sony Music, in fact I'm sitting in a Sony studio right now. Although projects are rarely spread internationally like this, the corporate structure is so fragmented that leaks often appear when media is being sent places for approval or assessment. In most cases important files are watermarked so the threat of being fired keeps most things tight.

I personally find the MJ leak hilarious. This is such a monumental dinosaur of a company, propped up as it is by the other Sony companies (hardware etc.) that its even slower to react to the realities of the modern music "industry". Its like watching a sloth trying to catch a fly.

Re:why?

[AlamedaStone]

How about clean while you're there like it happens in our place? (Unless you can't handle a minor interruption once a day)

Yeah, like I'm going to pick up trash in my f**king $6300 suit.

Come on!

(/gob)

Re:why?

[The Archon V2.0]

they sure don't need society to grant them welfare payments just because their dad(?) was a good singer.

Or their granddad. Or their great granddad. Because there's copyrights around now that have outlived not merely the creator but also some (or all) of the creator's children, even when the creator died early and the children are dying of old age. The great-grandkids are old enough to have jobs while the works of someone who's more ancestor than family member are still under copyright, not that they ever see the profits anyway.

Long way from the desperate-widow-and-her-baby-in-a-shack image the companies propagate, huh?

Re:why?

[Anonymous Coward]

+1

GP post was a brilliant piece of flamebait. I'm often attracted to stories on Slashdot concerning copyright and take a very extreme view (pro abolishment) but the idea that an artists work belongs to the public simply because it uses public knowledge is idiotic. They are more than welcome to keep such work secret, to sell such works to groups like Sony, et cetera. Sony is more than welcome to hoard such works and drip-feed them into stores to maximise profits.

However, once the data is released, it's released. Don't go suing everyone that makes a copy.

Re:why?

[staticneuron]

The fact is that those kids did no work whatsoever - not one shred, and they are getting paid for it by society (by the government, really). That makes it pure charity, which I am fine with, but I think limiting the charity to something reasonable like 10 years is more than sufficient and it might encourage artists to create, knowing that their kids will get a nice little 10-year annuity.

I am sorry, I don't understand the 'getting paid by government' part how does this work out?

So, you're basically saying that if person X wrote the lyrics to a song, person Y wrote the music, they both did it under contract to corporation C, who then hired performers P Q and R to perform it, P.1 should receive remuneration for every reproduction of that performance. At the same time, you're saying that if performer S then decides to cover the song, P.1 should not receive remuneration.

What you also loosely implied (but likely didn't mean to) was that at no time should X and Y benefit from "anyone" performing the song. I say this because MJ was often not just the performer, but also the songwriter (both X AND Y) and as such, it seems his children should have the same right to profit should those works (the lyrics and the tune) be reproduced by others.

In reality, X, Y C, P, Q and R can all be unique, the same, or any permutation. However, all of those variables have their own contracts and their own copyright protection, which is distinct for each role, even if they're not distinct in the person performing the function.

This is why the copyright issue is messy, and likely has no right answer.

What I mean, is that 'everyone' involved in making the tangible product should still receive royalties for that particular product. After copyright lapse though, they shouldn't be entitled to receive anything from people who cover the song or any variants of it as long as the new material doesn't contain snippets from the older work.

I guess, to be more clear is that I believe people should get paid for tangible products they create within the scope of original CP law but the intangible elements should be shared.

Re:why?

[MightyYar]

I am sorry, I don't understand the 'getting paid by government' part how does this work out?

The only reason that copyright exists is through government. That we pay them directly is just an implementation detail.

I guess, to be more clear is that I believe people should get paid for tangible products they create within the scope of original CP law but the intangible elements should be shared.

I see it all as equally tangible/not tangible. Especially now with everything going digital, most music never sees any kind of physical distribution. There is also nothing less tangible about notes printed on a sheet of paper than there is bits etched on a shiny disk.

At the end of the day, it is all just information. In ye olden days, you had two choices with any kind of information: share or don't share. You could probably get paid for a good idea for a little while, but sooner or later other people would catch on. This is good because it is how humanity progresses - but it also leads to things like "trade secrets" and lost knowledge and arts. The trick with copyright law is to try to use just enough incentive to get people to share their work, without slowing the progress of humanity. Giving dead artists incentive falls firmly into the later category, as far as I am concerned.

Re:why?

[Toze]

Wow, you're really mad about this, huh? Okay. I have a clarification and a question.

The clarification is that I was talking about completed works after the artist's death.
The question is this; you describe the idea of society being owed the creative work as "rubbish" and "ridiculous" and "sociopathic" and "infantile" and that releasing work "should be" the artist's choice. Why? I get that you don't buy the idea that all art is theft- though I disagree with you on that- but you haven't explained what systems or assumptions you use instead.

Re:why?

[AvitarX]

The difference in my mind (and I'll cede my op was knee jerk and not eloquent enough to convey my confused thoughts on the subject) is in your example a product that was going to be distributed at completion was turned into 0day warez. If you instead liberated/pirated, whatever you want to call it, but not theft, a finished game being indefinitely held back for some reason it'd be a different situation. Of course that makes no sense with a game, as it'd be non-viable tech wise.

If it looked like dnf would never be released, and you hacked the server, and released it illegally, I would argue you were a gaming hero.

I personally feel that the only reason this is news is that copyright was being abused to hold these tracks back, if Sony had released them as a product to sell this would be a non-story. If they planned on doing it shortly, it wouldn't of made /., being a music story, not tech. This is only news because Sony was indefinitely holding them back against the spirit of copyright, which is why it feels likes crocodile tears to me.

Re:why?

[qubezz]

Oops, this was my bad, I was just checking their system to see if it had any of my copyrighted works on it, it's gonna take me months of listening to find out if there was actionable infringement. a-chaka-hoo! Isn't that what us media creators do, access other people's computers without permission over the Internet to see if we can find our copyrighted works on them so we can start suing? Clearly their meager attempts at security are evidence of blatant premeditated efforts to elude detection of possible infringement and global file sharing, which will only make the hammer fall harder.

Re:why?

[dave420]

Or you could just calm the fuck down and stop jamming up the discussion with your inane posts. Yes, you have a point, but god damn the way you post it sucks.

Re:why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno... if past history is any indication, a single song is worth $60000, so they stole 3 quadrillion dollars worth of material. Or was it $20,000 a song? Can't remember what the final ruling was. If that's the case, then it's a piddly 1 quadrillion dollars.

Re:why?

[trdrstv]

It's fucking music tracks they were not releasing to cash in at a later point.

This was going to be available at some point in the future, and it's better for society that it's available now. Locked up in a vault they had zero value.

It has value to his kids. Michael specifically wrote / recorded music that was intended to be sold posthumously as a means of providing for his children when he was no longer around.

Re:why?

[Linuxmonger]

How does any of "patching, backups, updating the content, accessing the content" prevent a janitor from stealing the hard drive? How do you prevent the person that installed your security system from using it against you?

Re:why?

[davewoods]

Or maybe a pizza analogy? Surely Pizza Analogy Guy is around here somewhere.

Smooth

[Anonymous Coward]

Some smooth criminals!

Re: Smooth

[Obvius]

Don't Stop Till You Get Enough (downloaded music)

Re:Smooth

[TheCarp]

Sony are you ok? Are you ok Sony?

Re:Smooth

[Anonymous Coward]

So much piracy it makes me want to scream

Re:Smooth

[acedotcom]

Sony, you can't win.

Re:Smooth

[Ihmhi]

Oh no!

Re:Smooth

[Anonymous Coward]

I blame it on the boogie!

Re:Smooth

[Billlagr]

It reads like a Thriller

Good marketing

[asdbffg]

Really. This will get some good buzz going in advance of Sony formally releasing the tracks.

Re:Good marketing

[Shoe Puppet]

I wouldn't be surprised if those where the only copies, and the hackers deleted them. But they'll probably chase after the hackers and force them to re-upload the tracks to their servers in either case.

Re:Good marketing

[DarkOx]

I certainly how those were the only copies and the hackers deleted them. If there is one thing Sony does not need its more money, and if there is one thing I don't want to have to suffer hearing on the play list of every pub, is more of that man's terrible music.

Re:Good marketing

[Riceballsan]

Highly unlikely that they are the only copy, knowing sony they are probably behind the times, and thus have copies on CD's for the executives to listen to, and no matter how good a hacker is... destroying CDs remotely is not an easy feat.

Including a large number from Michael Jackson

[Barbara, not Barbie]

including a large number from the late Michael Jackson

And nothing of value was lost ...

Re:Including a large number from Michael Jackson

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially because nothing was lost...

Re:Including a large number from Michael Jackson

[Hentes]

Of course not, it was only copied and the original version is still there.

Re:Including a large number from Michael Jackson

[oldmac31310]

Exactly what I was thinking.

I wonder

[ooshna]

Will Sony finally get their heads out of their asses and get some adequate security now that they have gotten something important stolen from them instead of their customers?

Re:I wonder

[ZeroSumHappiness]

No. They can now just conflate crackers, hackers AND pirates and get even stricter laws into enforcement. This isn't a security problem on their end of course. This is because we're too soft on those dirty music downloaders.

Re:I wonder

[AngryDeuce]

I don't know but I'm sure I'll have another ToS to accept on my PS3 anyway...

Re:I wonder

[AdrianKemp]

Okay, I really can't let that go.

You start off intelligent enough; they will almost certainly do as you say and abuse this breach to ram awful laws through.

Shockingly enough even in the few words you posted you manage to go from enlightened to blabbering idiot:

too soft on those dirty music downloaders.

Sony was breached by criminals breaking the law. Sony wasn't doing anything (legally) wrong by holding those tracks and since the artists agreed to the terms of their engagement it's hard to fault them ethically for this particular act either. The people who broke into Sony need to be brought to justice just as a home invader does.

Re:I wonder

[ZeroSumHappiness]

Okay, I really can't let that go.

Whoosh.

Re:I wonder

[AdrianKemp]

Yeah, if only you had actually meant it that way.

Unreleased = No Copyright?

[udoschuermann]

Would copyright law apply to unreleased (and potentially unknown) materials? What if someone stamped their copyright notice on those stolen materials? How would Sony prove ownership and (exclusive) distribution rights? And would the simple assertion ("it's ours") be enough to support a take-down notice? Could anyone take down anything merely by making such a claim?

Re:Unreleased = No Copyright?

[langelgjm]

If the songs were created anytime in the past few decades, copyright applies automatically upon fixation of the work in a tangible medium of expression. Publication is not necessary. The rules for older works get much more complicated, but unlikely to apply here.

Re:Unreleased = No Copyright?

[Anonymous Coward]

Publication is not necessary. The rules for older works get much more complicated, but unlikely to apply here.

The question was about how they will prove they own the work. Anyone can claim they make the track in his basement with synthesizer and various audio filter. Yes, copyright apply before publication, but if you are not the first to publish the burden of the prove rest on you. While i have no doubt that Sony has enough money to win any cause in court, the question remain valid and interesting.

Re:Unreleased = No Copyright?

[UnknowingFool]

Copyright exists when the work is created. Registering a copyright with the appropriate government agency makes it official. One of requirements of copyright is ownership so someone other than Sony trying to register these works would likely be challenged. See the SCO v Novell situation. Novell registered the Unix copyrights before SCO did because of SCO's behavior.

Re:Unreleased = No Copyright?

[kanto]

Publication is not necessary. The rules for older works get much more complicated, but unlikely to apply here.

The question was about how they will prove they own the work. Anyone can claim they make the track in his basement with synthesizer and various audio filter. Yes, copyright apply before publication, but if you are not the first to publish the burden of the prove rest on you. While i have no doubt that Sony has enough money to win any cause in court, the question remain valid and interesting.

Afaik you could use a use a sealed postal letter to yourself (not sure if this translates correctly) or use a public notary to do something similar; both would at least work as a sign of you being in possession of the songs before they were released.

Re:Unreleased = No Copyright?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess there will be enough evidence that the man singing on the recording is indeed Michael Jackson, not Joe Hacker. And starting from that, all you need is a full sequence of copyright transfer contracts starting at Michael Jackson and ending at Sony.

Re:Unreleased = No Copyright?

[david_thornley]

Quick note: never bother with the sealed letter to yourself. It won't work anywhere you're likely to want a time record. If you need legal proof with a timestamp, go to a notary. They aren't that hard to find; any bank around here would have one pretty much constantly available.

Re:Unreleased = No Copyright?

[kanto]

Quick note: never bother with the sealed letter to yourself. It won't work anywhere you're likely to want a time record. If you need legal proof with a timestamp, go to a notary. They aren't that hard to find; any bank around here would have one pretty much constantly available.

Hmm... a registered letter looks is maybe a better translation, haven't sent any of those but what I'm getting at is a method of sending letters where it has to be signed for on retrieval; used to be the way to go for amateur novelists, but I suppose this can mean different things in different places.

Re:Unreleased = No Copyright?

[SockPuppetOfTheWeek]

I'd add to that: go to your bank. It's likely to be free to account holders, but most banks will charge a fee for notary service if you don't have an account there.

Where's the music?

[Dan East]

So where is this music? Why hasn't it spread far and wide over the net? I suspect the hackers are holding onto it in an attempt to blackmail Sony for a big chunk of cash.

Re:Where's the music?

[Hatta]

If I cared, I'd look for it on USENET or one of the darknets. Anyone connecting to a tracker that hosts this archive is begging for a lawsuit.

Re:Where's the music?

[ZombieBraintrust]

Hackers likely didn't know what they had. They grabbed a ton of data and used software to sift through it for passwords, credit cards and email addresses. Going through all the music and finding the songs that were unrealeased would take plenty of ears or a music matching database. That is why Sony waited a full year before talking about this.

Re:Where's the music?

[udoschuermann]

Maybe it was unreleased (and nobody bothered to make a torrent out of it) because it was actually awful?

Bad

[langelgjm]

Really, really bad.

Re:Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Just beat it.

captcha: imitated

Re:Bad

[arelas]

It's not as Black or White as you make it seem.

Re:Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Poor Sony. No one wants to be defeated.

Re:Bad

[Metabolife]

Whatever security measure Sony had in place, these hackers beat it.

Re:Bad

[MimeticLie]

I bet Sony wishes all these hackers would just beat it.

Re:Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

I was quite thrilled to read it.

Re:Bad

[Master Moose]

It was Dangerous

In further news ...

[Barbara, not Barbie]

Reporter: "So you're saying that these are unreleased tracks that were made before Michael Jacksons' death?"
Sony: "No, no - these are tracks from the LATE Michael Jackson!"
Reporter: "You mean, this is stuff from AFTER he died?"
Sony: "Exactly! This is music he created after death."
Reporter: "That's didiculous! How can he write music if he's dead?"
Sony: "He's de-composing, duh!"
Sony: "It's all in the contract. When you sign with us, we really do own your soul!"

Re:In further news ...

[Anonymous Coward]

OT: My daughter's name is Barbara. You have the coolest nick.

Re:In further news ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally! Proof that extending copyright beyond the creator's death really does encourage more content creation.

Re:In further news ...

[Em Adespoton]

That sound you hear from the graveyard is not Beethoven turning over in his grave; he's just de-composing.

distribution rights :)

[ciderbrew]

Sony, distribution is not a right. Well it's not now anyway.

Re:distribution rights :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Sony didn't distribute, after all.

That's interesting, but...

[eternaldoctorwho]

...who would want that "music"? I haven't listened to any MJ stuff since the 80s.

Where can we get it?

[wisnoskij]

Is there a torrent or something now?

Service to man kind

[Shivetya]

You know, Weapons of Mass Distortion...

and not all of these tracks are by artist people want to hear, I mean, there are good chances of unreleased Celine Dion tracks in there. Think of the children

Arrests will be made

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone want to bet that Sony will put a lot more time and money into this round of hacking versus the loss of customer data that happened previously?

The hackers who did this

[Parlett316]

Should really look at the man in the mirror

Until now

[overshoot]

I've never had much of a problem with the mischief-cracking set.

This could change my mind.

Were they hackers from 1985?

[elrous0]

Look, nothing against the guy, but how many people young enough to pirate still give a rat's ass about a singer whose career peeked about 25 years ago?

Re:Were they hackers from 1985?

[Hognoxious]

a singer whose career peeked about 25 years ago?

Some witty rejoinder about poking would appear to be in order, but unfortunately I can't find any way at all to link it to the deceased performer in question.

Re:Were they hackers from 1985?

[Ziekheid]

You might want to think again when it comes to true sceners vs the average P2P user when it comes to age.
Also, you might want to have a look at the itunes sales from 'a singer whose career peeked about 25 years ago'.

Re:Were they hackers from 1985?

[Beelzebud]

His career peaked 25 years ago, and he's dead; But I'll bet he still earned more money than you did last year...

Re:Were they hackers from 1985?

[Hentes]

It might come as a surprise but there are also people listening to music that is hundreds of years old.

Re:Were they hackers from 1985?

[Anonymous Coward]

Insert lame joke here about M.J. POKING children here.

Truly baffling

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok. So 50,000 tracks got downloaded.

Let's say for sake of argument, and since this was from their digital archive according to news radio this morning, that each of these tracks were in format of uncompressed audio. Would they really keep tracks as AAC, MP3, or MPA in their digital archive? I'm gonna be generous here and say each track was 25MB. That's roughly, 125GB of data to be downloaded. That isn't something you do overnight. That's something that takes days if not weeks, and possibly a month. Massive net security failure here, or what?

You have an obviously massive amount of money invested in that archive, and yet you don't protect it with approriate network security? I have to wonder how much their yearly network security expenditure was to protect that investment. $10,000? Clearly, they still haven't gotten the message that network security is important, even after the PSN lashing.

As little as I want to sympathize with Sony and it's continual targetting by subverts of the net, I just can't. They're a multi-Billion dollar a year company who have been in business for DECADES! How are you still in business with blunders like this?!?!? How the hell can you go around dropping hundreds of Millions on music catalogues and not protect your investment?

On a personal note, I wrote off Sony in 2000 when I bought my last TV whose components shorted at half their estimated life-time. I'm just truly baffled that a company this large, and with such massive influence and monies, can't take its online presence seriously.

Re:Truly baffling

[Baloroth]

This is Sony. Their idea of a Captcha is, well, this (Google, BTW, returns the Captcha letters in plaintext if you search for it. Yeah, not so good on the "stopping bots" there Sony). Sony is simply incompetent when it comes to security: there is no other way to put it. Their vaunted PS3 secure bootloader? Yeah, turns out they don't know how to properly sign their keys (instead of using random numbers in the signature, they always used the same number, allowing anyone to discover their private signing key with basic algebra). These aren't difficult-to-implement, advanced security: this is literally the basic concept behind these types of security, which you can find explained on Wikipedia, implemented well in open source software which they could use, and they still can't get it right.

They probably have the source for all their software hosted on an unsecured FTP server somewhere, so that their developers can access it easily, relying on no-one knowing the IP to keep it secure. It would literally not surprise me, at this point.

Re:Truly baffling

[Anonymous Coward]

This is Sony we're talking about. The songs are probably encoded in ATRAC.

Re:Truly baffling

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok. So 50,000 tracks got downloaded. ... That's roughly, 125GB of data to be downloaded.

Nice try, but it's like 1.25 TB of data, so even worse. And that's probably an estimated on the low side.

Re:Truly baffling

[Anonymous Coward]

last I heard from someone who worked for a label, the files are stored in .WAV format, so yeah these files had to be a large amount of data that would have taken a long time to download. I would think like a network utilization graph would have been off there..given that the PSN hack happened soon after Sony laid off some of their security staff..makes you wonder if they should invest more in their network/security people

Re:Truly baffling

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a single zip file.

Re:Truly baffling

[TheCarp]

Yes yes but any large enough org starts to stop acting like a single company at some point, and more like a country. Sure there is some central group who speak for everyone and claim singular direction and vision, when the reality is, they are full of different and often competing interests.

It would surprise me more if they had all of the source for all of their software hosted on an unsecured FTP server...just because its unlikely there is a single company-wide repository...or even if there is one.... that it, in fact, contains everything it should. Hell I would not be surprised if there were several unsecured ftp servers, each run by individuals or groups who, if asked, would say they are the single central repository.... and when asked about eachother, don't even know that they exist.

Dilbert explains the concept well:
http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-03-05/?CmtOrder=Rating&CmtDir=DESC

Re:Truly baffling

[Anonymous Coward]

> Would they really keep tracks as AAC, MP3, or MPA in their digital archive?

Yes, just like the Library of Congress does with photos. Not everyone needs a 200 megabyte TIFF when a lower resolution 200 kilobyte image will suffice.

Sony likely has multiple formats of each song stored in their library. There's a chance the intruders just got a bunch of 128kbps or lower VBR mp3s that are typically used for review purposes only.

Re:Truly baffling

[Anonymous Coward]

Curiously, Sony have decided to design and standardise a new 128-bit encryption algorithm named Clefia. I wonder if it's as secure as they claim...

Re:Truly baffling

[cybernanga]

This is Sony. Their idea of a Captcha is, well, this (Google, BTW, returns the Captcha letters in plaintext if you search for it.

Even worse, the "captcha" is there in plain text if you view the source code, which means that bots (with some simple logic) can just read it plainly.

Re:Truly baffling

[Chris Brewer]

It's worse than that, the Captcha isn't even an image, it's a table with random vertical aligns (top, bottom). The letters are plain text in the source that Sony thinks disabling the context menu will protect.

Re:Truly baffling

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's pretty obvious to anyone who develops for PlayStation consoles... Sony makes insane hardware, but just doesn't grok software.

Taking Computer Security seriously!

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe a kick in the pants or more accurately the pocketbook will make the suits in the executive suite to take security seriously. The CEx people have to allocate the proper amount of funds to build good network security. Right now it's looked upon as a drain on the bottom line. When they look at it as PROTECTING the bottom line, things might change.

But did data get out?

[dutchwhizzman]

Sure, data got in, Stuxnet got in. But no data got out. If you want to protect your IP from "theft" (they still have the data, so any file sharing evangelist won't call it theft) landlocking seems like a perfect layer of security. Trusting just the one layer is not very smart, but as security layers come, in this case, it would be quite effective.

Encrypting each individual track and storing the keys on another landlocked location would make it a lot better, but it would make access to the date quite a bit more cumbersome.

Re:But did data get out?

[Dog-Cow]

All my servers are landlocked. Unless the data center gets flooded.

Re:But did data get out?

[tlhIngan]

Sure, data got in, Stuxnet got in. But no data got out. If you want to protect your IP from "theft" (they still have the data, so any file sharing evangelist won't call it theft) landlocking seems like a perfect layer of security. Trusting just the one layer is not very smart, but as security layers come, in this case, it would be quite effective.
 

If Stuxnet could get in, it could leak data out (It just wasn't designed to). The fact it got in meant people with thumbdrives were regularly plugging stuff into airgapped computers, and that's your method out.

So you have an infected PC - that infected PC grabs interesting files and copies them to the thumbdrive. It also bundles in a way to infect the next PC.

The next infection, the virus determines if it can access the 'net. If it can, it transmits the secret data. If not, it assumes it's still on a secret network and goes hunting around for information to steal, waiting for someone else to plug in another thumbdrive. Maybe it also caches the previous stolen data just in case it's a mobile device that doesn't temporarily have internet connectivity.

Stuff got in and infected the secure network. Unless everything is wiped, there's no way you can assume stuff can't get back out. It'll be slow and tedious, but I'm sure Stuxnet went through a long period of debugging like that.

Re:But did data get out?

[Anonymous Coward]

I read the Stuxnet dossier and yes, data did get out. The virus/trojan payload has a very complex mechanism for propagating on PCs that did not have access to the internet and it does pass an encrypted string representing anything requested of it by the C&C centers.

Support your artists

[GodfatherofSoul]

If you don't want to more and more corporate-produced, demographically-designed artists, start buying your damned CDs from the people you like instead of downloading it for free and complaining about how crappy music is nowadays. I'm not even a huge music fan, but I make a point to buy CDs when I hear something I like.

Tiny violins?

[mindcandy]

filetype:torrent "tiny violins"

50,000 tracks

[Anonymous Coward]

Now who wants to bet that sony will try to sue them for copyright infringement? After all 50,000 tracks at $150,000 per track only puts their "losses" at $7.5 Billion per set of tracks. Oh wait...

Obligatory...

[Anonymous Coward]

torrent^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hmagnet link or it didn't happen.

Legal lock down of digital media in 5..4..3..2...

[whovian]

No matter whether Sony should've kept this on an isolated network or they weren't really planning to do anything with the tracks, I expect them to portray this incident as evidence in support of legally locking down all digital media. I would not be surprised if the "look what can happen" card will be played with renewed vigor.

Re: $50,000 Tracks

[TaoPhoenix]

Wait a minute, the Spin Doctor got here and led us right where he wants us.

So the real story is that Sony lost security on 50,000 tracks and the title became "Michael Jackson tracks copied"?! Really? They had to pick one of only about 10 Flamebait artists?

Lets hope the hackers got the high def masters....

[Anonymous Coward]

This might be interesting if the hackers got the high definition masters of Jackson's music.
Otherwise what did they hack mp3s ? lol.

Unreleased?

[synapse7]

So I listened to some MJ back in the 80s but now I wouldn't know if a track was unreleased or not. I wonder how the "hackers"/thieves know this, assuming it was not in a folder named UNRELEASED.

Re:Unreleased?

[CodeHxr]

I would presume that all officially released tracks are listed in an official discography. Probably on wikipedia as well... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jackson_albums_discography

It shouldn't be difficult to discover which ones weren't in the list.

A trend?

[digitalmonkey2k1]

Why does anything having to do with Michael Jackson always involve unwanted penetration?

I Wonder...

[mlauzon]

when the "unreleased" tracks of music will start showing up on torrent sites..?!

Stop using the word Hackers

[Anonymous Coward]

No matter what your opinion of Sony is, those are not hackers. Shitheads maybe, hackers not at all. Unless you think those idiots play in the same league as Linus Torvalds or Kirk McKusick.

Re:Stop using the word Hackers

[mlauzon]

The problem with that is, as soon as the media got hold of the word 'hacker' in the '80s, they turned it into a word that means something along the lines of "malicious intent", instead of what it meant, which was a programmer.

Re:Stop using the word Hackers

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with that is, as soon as the media got hold of the word 'hacker' in the '80s, they turned it into a word that means something along the lines of "malicious intent", instead of what it meant, which was a programmer.

What would you prefer? Crackers? Some white people broke in and stole our music?

Language evolves, have a banana.

Sony rootkit

[Anonymous Coward]

sony rootkit

Never forget, never forgive.

50000 tracks?

[Anonymous Coward]

No fucking way. Not humanly possible.

50000/365 = 137

So if he wrote and recorded one song every day since his birth, he would have had to live to 137 years old. I'm pretty sure he just died last year at the age of 50.

So... 50yr * 365d = 18250d
50000/18250 = 2.74 tracks written and recorded per day. (even as an infant)

This story is pure BS.

Re:50000 tracks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, I guess he died in 2009, not 2011. (wow time flies when yer an old fart)

Re:50000 tracks?

[CodeHxr]

I don't think that all 50k tracks were MJ. Some were other artists, I'm sure...

Data wants to be free - arts and music need to be

[Pf0tzenpfritz]

• Michael Jackson is dead - so he is not going to finish or republish anything
• Jackson -if you liked him or not- had massive influence on pop music during his creative phase
• SONY kept unpublished works as "property" and locked away from the public
• they had no right to do so

They might be legally entitled to do so but this only shows how screwed up IP is as a concept. You can not seriously keep unpublished works of an artist locked away after his death, as they are of common interest. History of culture and especially contemporary music would be plain incomplete and partially wrong if noone can find out which pieces a major artist did not publish and for what reasons. In fine arts and literature this is considered obvious, in music it always has been - before major labels and their absurd ideas about "owning" works arose. No need to mention that creative works are not solitary, isolated entities but results and part of their cultural context. To lock this context away, means to cripple culture itself. It doesn't matter if you agree. Progress won't matter. It will just happen elsewhere.

Can these tracks be detected?

[CodeHxr]

Assuming no modifications to the file, I wonder how many people will run these tracks through some kind of auto-identification service (WMP, for example) to get track name, artist, etc. to auto-populate.

Additionally, I wonder how many of these mp3 identification services will be looking for requests with specific track length/CRC values, etc.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that these requests were/are being tracked and IPs logged, etc. While I wouldn't expect Sony to act outright against these people (although it wouldn't surprise me if they did), it might make a *very* interesting watch-list for themselves or for the RIAA.

I caution anyone against seeking these tracks out. Or, if you already have them, encrypt or otherwise alter them so they cannot be identified by software algorithms and don't advertise that you have them. Hopefully those that stole them (yes, *stole*) to begin with have already taken these precautions.

(On a completely different topic, why the hell do I have to insert BR tags into my comment to get decent whitespacing?)

the "S" is for "sieve"

[swschrad]

if you got your CS skills from matchbook U, there's a job for you at Sony.

Let's stop calling that "property", shall we?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean: copyright, OK. Although many don't agree with details of the law.

But I think we should eradicate this "intellectual property" meme. We are working into the hands of this "IP industry", which is trying hard to put so-called "IP" at one level with real estate. To pull off the very same speculative shenanigans we've witnessed wih real estate, food and all that.

Do we want that?

I have a Michael Jackson track download

[NSN A392-99-964-5927]

This is a Prince and Michael Jackson track that I do believe if it was never listed the RIAA or others cannot have any legal right over as it was never released. This was released for DJ's only not for record companies. I have the original and the RIAA and others do not have the original. Therefore if they have do have the acetate I would like to see it.

Enjoy the track; thanks to Prince and Michael Jackson! http://www.fluxradio.org/jackson-prince.mp3 enjoy people!

Jeez...

[Jawnn]

Why couldn't they have stolen some good music? Go ahead. Tag me for trolling. I don't care. Even at it's best, MJ's music, like so much "pop" music, has little to recommend it, sonically or stylistically.

Re:Jeez...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the kind of uninformed comment only somebody who was born in the late 90s could make.

So does this mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

That the RIAA can sue Sony for piracy???

dear hackers,

[unami]

please free those poor, trapped songs (i guess there's also some unreleased material by other artists as well)

Re:Data wants to be free - arts and music need to

[cybernanga]

You can not seriously keep unpublished works of an artist locked away after his death, as they are of common interest.

Just to argue a point:

If an artist creates and records 20 songs, they are free to decide that they would like to release 10 of them today, and the other 10 in five years time, their logic being that they don't want to flood the market with new tracks, as that would affect demand, price & revenue.

They are also free to sell the rights to the extra 10 songs to a third party. Additionally they can make it a conditional sale, that prevents the purchaser from releasing them before a particular date.

Now if the original artist dies before the agreed upon release date, are you suggesting that the new owner MUST forfeit any chance to profit from their investment, and immediately release the songs into the public domain? If you are, do you realise that that would likely prevent artists from selling the rights to their future catalogs, as far fewer investors would take the risk, if their investment was likely to simply disappear, if the artist died.

"Bad"

[Anonymous Coward]

"The news comes just a year after Sony paid $395 million for the seven-year rights to the songs following Jacko's death."

And yes this is what 20th Century Fox posted on their Fox News site.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/03/05/hackers-steal-michael-jacksons-entire-back-catalogue/

What ever happen to 20+2nd Century Fox. I thought they where suppose to upgrade their servers after the 21st century?

Correction.

[Isaac Remuant]

I fucked up what I was trying to say. The cleaning crew comes when we are present. If we are not present, door is locked and no one gets inside.

Re:Data wants to be free - arts and music need to

[Pf0tzenpfritz]

Not into the public domain, but they must release them. SONY, however, bought the tracks after Jacksons death only to keep them locked in order to maximize their profit. They really had it coming. (Disclaimer: I am an artist, not a lawyer. I look at things from an artist's point of view. Which is, of course, the right one.)

Re:Data wants to be free - arts and music need to

[cybernanga]

Thanks for replying.

Not into the public domain, but they must release them.

Just trying to understand your point here so bear with me (I'm a bit thick). If you say they don't have to be released into the public domain, then I assume you are ok with them marketing and selling the tracks, and thereby hopefully for them) making a profit. How long after the artists death do you suggest that they have to have released them by?

I ask because as far as I know, they haven't stated that they will never release them, and I assume they are waiting until they feel the market conditions are right for them to achieve the maximum return on their investment.

What's a young rootkit called?

[Anonymous Coward]

A rootkitten. Dial 1-800-SONY and ask for more information.

Exciting times - Unmastered files

[Anonymous Coward]

The prospect of getting hold of these files is interesting. We currently have a situation where when music is released it has been messed with, double and triple remastered to make it loud. This results in distortion and effectively ruins the music.

So this music could essentially be the original raw version without the damage done.

Franco is still dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazing that Sony is running a bittorent service. I thought they want to control the music industry? I guess that's not working too well for them. Maybe they should think about becoming a hackers paradise and test all the new security products available on the market. Sony's new honeypot project and you get prizes for winning?

Re:Franco is still dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony's new honeypot project and you get prizes for winning?

If the reward is going to be MJ tracks, I think I'd rather play pwn2own.

Re:Data wants to be free - arts and music need to

[trdrstv]

Not into the public domain, but they must release them. ... (Disclaimer: I am an artist, not a lawyer. I look at things from an artist's point of view. Which is, of course, the right one.)

So the "Right one" is actually keeping these locked up and unreleased.

Michael very specifically recorded these tracks (about 100 all told) for his children to be released posthumously, so THEY would be taken care of. Back in 2009 when he was having financial problems, he was approached asking to release some and he refused.

Mr Halperin, author of Unmasked, The Michael Jackson Story said before his death: “He wants to leave them for his kids, a very personal legacy to them. I was told he will not let them come out now.”